The Alley Awards were tallied yearly for comic books produced during the previous year. The Alley statuette was initially sculpted by Academy member Ron Foss out of redwood, from which "plaster duplications" were made to be handed out to the various winners.[3]

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The Alley Award traces its origin to "a letter to Jerry dated October 25, 1961" by Roy Thomas, in which he suggested that Jerry Bails' fanzine Alter-Ego, which had debuted in March 1961, create an award for fandom's "favorite comic books in a number of categories."[3]

Initially suggested as the "Alter-Ego Award," the name evolved into the Alley Award after comic stripcavemanAlley Oop, since, as Thomas reasoned, "surely a caveman had to be the earliest superhero chronologically."[3] Comics historian Bill Schelly notes that no one "bothered to ask the NEA [newspaper] syndicate for permission to utilize V. T. Hamlin's comic strip character".[3]

By the awards' third year, the number of ballots received had become so overwhelming that Bails called for a fan get-together at which votes could be tabulated by group effort. This gathering of Midwestern fans, held in March 1964 at the Detroit-area home of Bails, was dubbed the "Alley Tally", and its success provided inspiration for the organizing of comic book fan conventions that began soon afterward.[4]